Friday, October 9, 2015

The Grace of the World

"Try to be someone upon whom

nothing is lost!"

—Henry James

Looking for inspiration today, keeping an eye out for things literary, things historical, things heavy with time, I come across this Wendell Berry poem, and Jane Hirshfield's heartfelt recipe forlentils, both at the same time earthy and heavenly.I love the images together—the mossy gate, the day-blind stars, the carrots and onions and goat cheese that go into the poet's soup.I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

—Wendell Berry, from "The Peace of Wild Things"

The grace of the world is everywhere; "god is in the details."And so I scoop up all
the gathered bits and put them in my own soup of the day (remembering that I
must soon bring out the cookbook of monastery soups, and chop in earnest, not
just in my heart and mind).

“Don't pass it by—the immediate, the real, the only, the
yours.”—Henry James